The Dirty South by John Connolly

Before we get started. This is by JOHN Connelly, whose main character is the former NYPD detective Charlie Parker. It is not by MICHAEL Connelly, whose main character is Harry Bosch (and Mickey Haller, aka The Lincoln Lawyer). Both write crime novels. But they couldn’t be more different.

John Connelly has written 17 prior Charlie Parker novels, a couple of which have been reviewed here on MRB. This one differs a bit as it helps establish Parker’s backstory. Parker had been an NYPD detective. Toward the end of his time on the force, a suspicious murder went down, and Parker may or may not have been involved. But the real force behind who Parker is and would become is that his wife and daughter were murdered. Make that slaughtered. He fell apart after that, quit the force, and began his hunt for the killer. With the help of an FBI agent friend, Parker would look into murders across the US with roughly the same MO.

Which brings him to Burdon County Arkansas late in Bill Clinton’s 2^nd term in office. A third teenage girl has suffered what appears to be a ritualistic death. The first one happened about 15yr ago. The second happened a month before the third. The victims appear to have been tortured and their bodies mutilated with tree limbs crammed into various orifices.

Cargill is a nothing city buried deep within a nothing county in a forgotten corner of a state that competes with Mississippi to be the bottom of any 'best of' list of the US. The Cargill chief of police, Evan Griffin, is an Arkansas native and deals with drunks, some property crime, meth cookers, and traffic issues. A serial killer is out of his league. One evening in a local diner, he spots a stranger, Parker, and hassles him to the point where Griffin thinks a night in the slammer might improve Parker’s attitude. Next morning they check him out. What they learn earns a quick release and an apology.

Parker is curious about the murders. Griffin brings his up to speed and asks for help that Parker grudgingly agrees. Two issues underlay most everything in Cargill. First, the county is pretty much run by the Cade family. Has been for decades. The patriarch is Pappy and his three children make sure the county is run according to their wishes. His daughter Delphia lives in Little Rock to keep tabs on the legislature. Jurel is the Chief Investigator for the Burdon County Sheriff’s office. Nealus stays local to manage off of Pappy’s interests in Cargill. Nothing happens in Burdon County without Pappy’s blessing.

Second is that the county is dirt poor. Dirt poor may be a disservice to ‘dirt’. What that means is that land is plentiful and cheap. Now if some industry could be successfully courted to locate in Burdon County, that’d mean millions to the Cade family in land sales and more millions in money to the county what with construction costs, operational expenses, and the tax base. A company that deals in high tech for the military has narrowed its search for a new plant to Burdon County and somewhere in Texas. And Pappy Cade is going to make sure they choose Cargill.

The problem is whether they’ll choose Cargill what with at least two (and maybe a third if the initial death is included) unsolved murders of teenage girls. Pappy thinks law enforcement should put the investigation on the back burner until the papers are signed. And with son Jurel in the sheriff’s office, that should be easy. But the last killing was in the Cargill police jurisdiction and Chief Griffin stands his ground to lead the investigation.

The investigation pings all over the county from horny bar owners to crystal meth cookers to good ol’ boys dipping their wick in the local teenagers to local hookers and politics at the State level. Someone sure seems bent on making sure that the techies will use the killings as a reason to choose Texas for their new facilities.

Connelly paints a dead and dying corner of Arkansas to be a loathsome and worthless corner of the world. The locals are mostly ignorant and racist pigs who proudly wear their attitudes on their collective sleeves. Only the Cargill cops and the night clerk at a motel are deserving of our sympathies. The Cade family meets every stereotype of the southern control freaks who believe everyone in the county is there to meet their needs. A wretched clan they are.

If I had one hesitation, it’s this (and it's minor, believe me). John Connelly was born in Dublin and has won nearly every fiction prize out there. One thing sets UK authors apart from American authors. UK authors sure seem to have a greater command of the language, meaning a broader vocabulary. It was a good thing I was reading this on a Kindle so that I could select any number of words for its definition. Happened nearly every chapter. And that command of the language is visible in the dialogue. As such, I found it a little odd that some yahoo from rural off the map Arkansas might ask, ‘what gives you a proprietorial interest in developments?’ But making county bumpkins sound more educated shouldn’t deter anyone from picking up this (or any) book by John Connolly. It is what it is. It’s about the story. It’s about Parker wrestling with his demons that control his guilt while trying to help a fellow officer in need of his skills. And in this book, we see how Parker perfects his hunting skills.

And guess what, boys and girls? This is another Emily Bestler Books product so you know it’ll be absolutely first rate. Pay attention to those publishers. I’ve yet to go wrong with books from Emily Bestler Books.

A tip of the hat to NetGalley for the advance reviewer copy. Release date is October 20, 2021.

ECD

A Time of Torment by John Connolly

In the Portland, Maine area, jeweler Jerome Brunel finally decided to get a concealed-carry permit. Considering the amount of gems he bought and sold, it seemed a wise investment.

Until he stopped at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere. While inside, two low life creeps try to rob the place and Jerome, acting on instinct, manages to stop the robbery cold. Dead. Both of them.

Jerome is now a local hero. Doesn't help much with his wife. They are on the skids, mostly waiting for one to make the first call to a lawyer. But it's only a few months later when the cops show up with a warrant and find a whole bunch of kiddie porn on this laptop and in a closet. According to the cops, that constitutes intent to distribute. Jerome goes from hero to pariah in just a few months before getting shipped off to prison. A place not known to be welcoming to people who are, or might be, child molesters.

Problem is that Jerome is neither. Set up by some smart people. He does his best to serve out his term. When finally paroled, he struggles with life on the outside and eventually comes across Portland PI Charlie Parker and his two partners/muscle. Louis and Angel. Picture a couple of juiced-up NFL linebackers, only these two have some serious attitudes. But they will listen.

Jerome claims innocence and just wants to get his name cleared. Parker says OK and starts digging into the details of the shooting and Jerome's conviction. After only a couple days on the job, Jerome disappears. Parole board and the cops think he has skipped town. Parker doesn't.

The investigation gets going in earnest when Parker tracks down a particularly bad con from the prison. Gave Jerome a really bad time while imprisoned. This guy hung something known as the Dead King over Jerome's head. Tracking the con and the Dead King leads Parker and his two protectors to the West Virginia boondocks in the state's smallest, poorest, and least likely to be anything county.

In this county is a parcel of land that has remained in the hands of the families who settled there in the 1700s. The locals refer to it as The Cut. A place that if you weren't born into, you weren't likely to ever live, want to live or have anything to do with. Mostly self-sufficient, they keep to themselves and police themselves. No need for the sheriff to enter The Cut. Sure they've run a few drugs, but what small time town in WV hasn't?  It keeps a little money coming in for when they need things from the outside.

But their real source of big income is in selling babies. They kidnap teenage girls, imprison them, and keep them pregnant. A shady lawyer up in Ohio sets up adoptions for big bucks. But some boys in The Cut screwed up. They killed someone they thought needed killing and buried the corpse too shallow and it was found. The victim wasn't a local, so now the sheriff, state police, and FBI all  smell blood in the water.

But none more curious than Parker. From the act of a reluctant hero has become a tangle of not only shady connections between Maine and West Virginia, but also of blood lines, lust amongst the leaders of The Cut, and the results of generations of inbreeding in The Cut.

I honestly think that we MRB boys got so obsessed with Michael Connolly and the Harry Bosch character that we sort of ignored John Connolly and Charlie Parker. While both write about crime, their writing styles couldn't more different. Michael delivers direct, a mostly in your face narrative. John, on the other hand, writes in a far more eloquent and lyrical style. Closer to 'fiction' and 'literature' than 'mystery.' The book really was hard to put down. No matter where I was when I had to stop, I found myself glancing back at my Kindle wishing I could read further. I'd put his gift for descriptive narrative closer to a couple other favs like Robert McCammon or William Kent Kruger. Almost artistic or musical in his delivery. Captivating.

Surprisingly, at least to me, this is the 14th Charlie Parker novel and based on some backstory from #13, I honestly think I'm sorry that I came late to this party. Because of the graceful style and intricate plotting and pacing, I think I'd be wise to start back at #1. Not many series that grab me like that. Last one I can recall is the Longmire novels of Craig Johnson.

Just published in August 2016.

ECD

Just a comment from WCD. I agree that the quality of writing is good, but the book is really, really dark - child kidnapping and murder. I got into the middle of this one and decided I just wasn't in the mood for the subject material, and I quit reading at that point. Life is too short and there are so many books to read. Thanks for the review from my reading partner and I'm glad you often have more of cast iron stomach than I do.

WCD